Skip Ahead To The Ending
by tasteofhysteria
Summary: It was just supposed to be a simple journey home, like they'd done a thousand times before. He hadn't known they were in the company of Judases.


He remembered watching Danmark die.

He could recall every sickening moment of it.

He remembered the end of a successful campaign. A big band including them and their men marched north towards home, feeling the buoyancy of victory and triumph keeping their spirits afloat in the abysmal fog as they laughed and conversed boisterously amongst themselves. Armor was shed and packed away into the caravan following some distance behind, heavily laden with their spoils.

Danmark had been laughing, trying to keep Norge entertained on the long walk home with silly anecdotes and stories, attempting to draw out a small smile or peevish reply. Whichever came first.

Norge just wished Danmark would shut up for once.

But they walked close enough together that the folds of their cloaks hid their intertwined fingers from the view of the men as Danmark spun absurdly childish tales of enchanted fish women and sea foam.

Neither of them noticed how quiet the men had gone, listening.

They crested the rise of a tiny hill. Norge had squeezed Danmark's hand and told him how ridiculously flat the land was. And Danmark had begun laughing.

"You see that?" he'd asked, motioning at a smallish stand of trees in the distance, only about an hour's walk away in the mist. "That means we're nearly home."

Norge had made some scathing retort, and Danmark laughed again.

Had been laughing as an arrow sprouted over his heart.

At the time, Norge hadn't known what was worst.

It was hard trying to decide between the face of surprise when two more arrows joined the first in Danmark's chest, the expression of shock when he was impaled from behind by the sword of one of his own men, or the look of numb disbelief when a knife found its way across his throat.

Maybe what was worst was the sound Danmark made when he started to choke on his own blood.

Danmark's fingers lost Norge's in the small fray that followed. He braced his palm against Norge's shoulder and shoved the Norwegian away, sending him stumbling backwards off the road. Norge had lost his footing almost immediately and had fallen, tumbling headlong downhill through the brambles and briars until his shoulders and back met with a solid tree trunk. His legs curled forcefully into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. A moment later, the cloud of dust and debris he'd kicked up during his fall followed the downward momentum, fanning into his face and eyes, forcing them shut.

His head ached at the impact, ears ringing with the cheers of victory somewhere overhead.

_"Faen,"_ he thought to himself, struggling upright and grabbing at tree roots to haul himself back up the hillside. _"Faen."_

How typical of that Danish moron to almost get Norge killed by trying to help him escape.

Eventually, Norge found himself close to the hill's peak and crouched in the underbrush. A righteous indignity filled him as he watched the men (the men who had been their comrades) mill around, congratulating each other with hearty slaps on the back and exuberant laughter as they waited for the caravan to catch up so that they could add it to their list of daily conquests.

_'Bastards,'_ Norge thought contemptuously, unsheathing the sword at his hip, ready to rush forward from the bushes and deliver a fierce slaughter to the backstabbing Judases that dared make fools of them.

But Danmark stopped him.

Or rather, Danmark was staring at him and it froze him in place.

They had skewered him to the ground with his own sword like a damned pig or one of those butterflies that Island liked to affix to the walls with brass pins, blood staining the dirt into a blackish brown. His arm was still outstretched in Norge's direction, fingers reaching.

"What about the other one?"

One of them bent over Denmark and brushed a hand over his eyes, closing them with a low muffled swear.

Norge's breath caught in his throat and he shrank back into the safety of the bushes, heartbeat accelerating into a bruising crescendo behind his sternum.

"What?"

"The other one. He'll go running off to get reinforcements and then we'll be in for it—"

"Are you an idiot? They're monsters."

A ruthless kick was placed into Danmark's ribs and Norge gagged at the wet ripping sound it produced as the sword tore sideways through Danmark's stomach.

"We were lucky to catch hi—_it_ by surprise. We lost the other one, but thank God for it. If they'd been ready, wouldn't been even one of us left standing."

"But if it comes back—"

"By then we'll be gone. Just keep your goddamned focus on the wagons."

He memorized each of their faces through the thick miasma of fog, disgusted with them, imagining how their faces might twist with agony if they had been the ones run through.

He despised them.

The wagons had stopped moving some distance away.

The men muttered anxiously amongst themselves before dispersing into the murky woods on the other side of the path in small groups, planning to circle around and seize the caravan in a pincer maneuver that bespoke premeditated planning. Hateful bastards. Danmark would have them burned alive or force them to circle the tree for their mutinous betrayal.

Norge waited for the last crackle of shifted branches and snap of trodden-on twigs to fade away into silence before slipping out of the brush as silently as he could manage and dropping to his knees at Danmark's side.

"Danmark," he hissed, shaking the taller man's shoulder insistently and staining the leather of his gloves with cruor. "Danmark, get up. We have to go before they come back!"

There was no response. Norge cursed Danmark for choosing now to take one of his naps, even as he yanked the arrows from the Danish man's chest.

"You're being a child about this," Norge informed him, an irritable edge to his voice. He stood and brushed the dust from his knees with a brisk pat and stared down at Danmark dispassionately.

"You always make me do everything…" he muttered darkly. He stepped sideways so that he stood over Danmark, feet braced solidly on either side of the Dane's hips. He gripped the sword's hilt, fingers sliding on the blood that coated it from top to bottom. His palms slid from the handle with a slick pop. Norge grumbled to himself, grasped the hilt once more and pulled.

The sword was stuck fast in the ground, as if they'd taken a mallet to it and hammered it into the earth like a nail.

His fingers slipped from the hilt again. Norge grimaced as the blood soaked through the material of his gloves to stain his fingers.  
He swore vivid oaths that no normal thirteen year old boy should know as he fell backwards once more, tripping over Danmark's stupidly long legs to sprawl in the blood-thickened dust.

"Damn you," he shouted hoarsely, voice cracking up an octave, "Damn you and your sense of timing—"

For what he swore was the last time, Norge lifted himself out of the mud and seized the sword again, tugging and pulling with all the force his thin arms could muster.

And again he fell back, but this time with the weight of a broadsword landing heavily across his thighs. He tsked in disgust, shoving it away to clatter on the ground and scowled down at the horizontal lines of blood it had left as residue across his leggings. Idiot Dane—always causing trouble, even when not doing anything.

He crawled over Danmark's legs, leaning over his ruined stomach to shake his shoulder once more. He called for Danmark quietly, aware of the danger once his anger had passed.

"Danmark. Danmark, you have to get up before they come back."

Norge shook the man's shoulder more desperately as he refused to be woken.

"Danmark— _Danmark!_"  
Norge had even seized a handful of Danmark's hair and tugged ruthlessly, hoping the sting of it would awaken the Dane so that they could move, get off the road, get out of danger…

He didn't stir even once.

Norge huffed in irritation and let his grip slacken, dropping his head against Danmark's chest, heedless of the blood now smeared across his cheek. What was he missing?

Missing—

His breath hitched in his throat and Norge went silent, waiting.

…missing—

Missing was the heartbeat he'd fallen asleep to every night for so many years.

In the distance rang the echoes of the ambush coming to fruition and fighting beginning in earnest; they didn't have long now.

"Danmark—Danmark, _please_," Norge croaked, sitting up slightly and fisting his hands in Danmark's tunic, "We have to move."

A twig snapped off to the side and Norge tensed over Danmark protectively. He leaned over Danmark, edging closer so that his hair fell softly over Danmark's too pale cheek.

"Søren," he murmured, breath ghosting over Danmark's face and their lips just barely brushing together-

"Søren, they're coming, _please-_"

The far-off din of swords clanging together had faded away, replaced with the creaking of the wagons moving once more behind the cloud of dust that the scuffle had risen. Norge's breath left his lungs in one quick exhale. No more time, they were out of time, and Søren was still asleep or whatever the hell this was, and clearly those the bastards were on their way back to finish the job. Norge quivered and briefly buried his face in the crook of Danmark's neck, taking a deep breath before forcing himself to sit up and roll away. What to do... he shakily got to his feet and seized Danmark under the arms, trying to drag the man off the road and into the cover of the brush surrounding them. He didn't budge. Norge pulled more fiercely, heels digging into the soil as he half-dragged, half-carried Danmark into hiding. Glancing back, he blanched at the long skid mark of blood following them. He bit his lip in thought, but the sound of the wagons was too close now. He braced Danmark against a tree in an upright position, as if he really was sleeping and not...

Norge took a deep breath and rubbed an impatient fist over his eyes, smearing the filth and gore on his face into a heathenish battle paint. He glared at the man he had been unfortunate enough to be stuck with for ages, blaming him for how this whole mess was turning out. The wagons drew ever nearer; he could see the haze kicked up by the beasts hauling them forward. If they noticed the blood trail and decided to follow...

He drew his sword silently, letting it hang by his side.

If they came, he'd kill them.

He'd kill them all.


End file.
